Hum(mer) a Birthday Song

Around eighty guests joined twins Maria and Nicole for their 30th birthday bash at Rattlers in South Yarra on Saturday night. The venue looked superb in pink and chocolate and we took around 500 photos on the night.

The girls arrived in a pink s t r e t c h Hummer - I couldn't quite believe it when the driver pulled up on the other side of the street and the girls had to negotiate busy Toorak Road to get to the party! We missed out on what would have been a nice shot of the Hummer in front of Rattlers. You can see the photos we took here.

Matt and Daniele

Matt and Daniele got married on Sunday last at the Wooling Hill Memorial Garden at New Gisborne, with their reception at Roomba's, right next door.

We had a bit of fun with Daniele and her sister Michelle during the pre-ceremony photos.

It was a great wedding and the courtyard out the back of the venue was a lovely place for the family group photos.

Together, we do better . . .

It's been a real pleasure this week to photograph the annual Disability Professionals Victoria conference.

This is my fourth year photographing the conference and the 2009 event didn't disappoint. The Sebel is a great venue (if a little hard to get to in the morning peak hour) with great facilities and staff.

But the best part about the conference are the inspirational sessions. People like Anna Healey and Don Elgin have amazing stories.

This year the conference opted for a paperless conference pack - all the conference papers and promotional material were contained on a usb drive that flipped out of a plastic card the size of a credit card. Funny man, Rod Quantock, the MC of the conference, gives a demonstration of downloading from the usb drive by sticking it in his ear.

You can see photos of the conference here.

Federation Square

I have been to Federation Square twice this week. The first occasion was to photograph the launch of National Disability Services' Disability Safe program.

The second visit was to get some photos of Erick Fackert.

Erich is the current artistic director of the Melbourne City Opera. But he returns to Germany in a couple of days and parts company with the MCO.

The photos were used in a poster to celebrate Erich's last performance with the Melbourne City Opera.

Just an update

If you follow this blog you'll know the updates are quite occasional! It's been around four months since I made the effort.

For the record:

December 2008 was very busy with the CPCA photos and then a fantastic Indian wedding which was a ball. A couple of corporate Christmas parties rounded out the month (the funtastic party was good fun!).

January 2009 was a good start to the year with a photoshoot for High Ideals and a wedding with Brad and Kylie. The High Ideals photoshoot was a to get some images for their website etc - High Ideals is maybe best described as an industry association but it's not restricted to one industry, it's an association of like minded people intent on providing the best for their clients.

I used the shoot as a training vehicle for my good friend Mel Norris who was down from Queensland getting some experience. I spent some time working on some ideas to make the images a little different from the usual three quarters front - do you like the "logo on a clear sheet" idea?

February saw us off to Bangladesh and India for five weeks - a great experience. Mel looked after Photoeventz while I was away and did a fantastic job. We did some prior training before I left but you never allow enough time for this sort of thing and it was great to come home to a clean desk. Mel shot an event for Austrian Airlines in Sydney and Melbourne while I was away. I took the Canon 5d Mark II to the sub-continent and it now looks well used!

March has been good with an engagement party that became a wedding, a great night for Thai Airways and an MFAA race night at Moonee Valley plus a program launch for National Disability Services.

The "to do" list hasn't got any shorter. Plenty of plans for new things in 2009, just need to make some time to achieve them. Heading off to Tasmania at Easter - the rest of April is blocked out and May is very busy, so we are having plenty of fun.

Art for company sake . . .

Annecto celebrated their establishment of an office in Coburg yesterday. Local member Kelvin Thomson gave a speech and annecto representatives Ed Sill and Lando Antonelli talked about their community initiatives in the area.

Annecto's mission is to assist people who have a disability or who are disadvantaged and older persons and carers to achieve their goals and enable better lifestyles. One way to establish links within communities is to foster programs that include people like choirs and art groups. These are great ways to bring people together for a few hours each week and to give them a sense of belonging.

The photo above shows Tiziana Contu who volunteered her talent to help a group at the Coburg facility to realise a large wall mural. It certainly brightens up the venue.

Spring (Carnival) is over

The Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival is over and The Cup has a new (long shot) owner. I photographed some different awards last night with some 300 FINSIA (Financial Services Institute of Australasia) graduates stepping up at a ceremony at The Grand Hyatt. Pictured is Kevin Saunders who took away a stack of awards. We'll we sure need his expertise over the next few years to get the economy going again.

Talking to my computer guy Sam up Sydney Road this morning and he tells me that people have stopped spending - they are frightened of what lies ahead and prefer to keep their money in their pocket at the moment. I wish! I upgraded a couple of hard-drives into a server configuration last week at not an inconsiderable expense, and invested in a new dye-sub printer. So I'm on rations until Christmas.

Photographed the EW Tipping Foundation AGM tonight - it is exciting to see the talent and dedication that is in these organisations that provide services for members of our community that need support.